From what you describe, it seems like a malware infection.
While particular symptoms of malware can help cleaning out particular malware, this unfortunately does not solve the problem, to my experience - the particular problem
being that you have probably more than one piece of malware on your system.
Assuming you're using Windows, I'd suggest:
1. Back up all your important email in clear text, this meaning saving every single email as a tekst file from within Notepad. Do NOT compromise on this point, or you'll
probably get infected again, before you can count 1-2-3... same goes for importing old .idx files.
2. Flash your BIOS, and set the jumper on your motherboard not to be writeable
(yes, read the fine manual :)
3. Do an A: fdisk /mbr on your HDD to reset the Master Boot Record, and then
zero out your HDD with a util that you *know* actually zeroes out your drive.
4. Reinstall your system, only this time you should choose to make Thunderbird
(or whatever you might prefer, just NOT any MS app) your primary email client
5. Choose another browser than IE. This one could be a good choice, as it's up to date, and at the same time completely free from any of the usual Google snooping on your
habits. Google Chrome without the snooping: srware.net. Or even better, Firefox, but only if you also install the NoScript add-on, and promise to avoid Flash in the future :)
6. Consider separating the systems you use for email, and so for internet browsing (huge advantage). E.g. the operating system on one partition, email on another
partition, and browser on yet another partition.
7. Consider a system that can restore your present state at any time, This can
be done either by back up, or by using an USB drive. This goes for both *nix
and Windows.
Good luck.
/s
Sam Franc wrote:
>Some fluffy stuff...
